Stuff

Phil Cowley at Queen Mary University London has released a new YouGov poll ahead of the London local elections next month. Local election voting intentions are CON 29%(+1), LAB 51%(-3), LDEM 11%(nc), changes are from the previous poll in mid-February.

If these figures were to be repeated at the locals then Labour would pull off a crushing victory… but not quite as crushing as some had previously speculated. Back in February the poll had suggested a swing of over 13 points in inner London, bringing Tory bastions like Westminster and Wandsworth into play. The inner London swing in this poll is more modest, at just under 7 points. If that was repeated Westminster would remain safetly Conservative, though Wandsworth would still be relatively close.

That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be a good performance in London for Labour, merely that it may not now deliver many council gains or headlines. Labour already made substantial gains in 2014. Barnet is the only “easy” pick-up for them next month, after that the Tories are down to their safest Boroughs that would take some substantial swings for Labour to gain. It will be interesting to see how the spin battle to portray the outcome as a success or victory for Labour & the Conservatives pans out.

611 Responses to “YouGov/QMUL poll of London”

I understand the desire to be blunt, but although we are many of us a bit provocative, the board works by us reigning it in a bit. Lost count of how many tell-it-like-it-is posts I’ve written then deleted before posting. I know I’m not alone in that…

“Have you noticed how it is always people of his political view who reach for the “Race Cards”.?”

Not that I want to defend AL at all. I long ago decided to go for the ‘skip’ option on his posts. But on this point, I think I’ve noticed a certain amount of “reaching for the race card” coming from other sources when directed at Labour’s anti-semitic problem. So I think “always” may be a bit strong here.

@Trevor Warne – re FDI inward flows: they are volatile, but when I originally pointed the figures out I did indicate that 2016 had been a very strong year, and because of this make sure I detailed the fact that the 2017 figure is extremely low compared to the years exclusing 2016. It’s an exceptionally bad figure – as a % of GDP, it’s almost identical to the post banking crash year of 2009, and you would then need to go back to 1984 to get a worse figure.

@”Rigid bureaucratic enforcement of eligibility rules, developed for a very different environment, inevitably produces unfairness and unintended, contrary consequences.”

Obviously & predictably.

Ministers -of course-must take final responsibility.

But unless we are employing mere robots in Whitehall , I think it not unreasonable that Civil Servants-and noteably the senior echelon ,-be called upon to provide, in return for their handsome salaries & generous retirement entitlement ,some judgement & common sense .

If they are unable to do so, it would seem that the tick boxes could merely be handed out ,without the neccessity of their expensive but utterly pointless presence.

You are in quite a provocative mood in saying that civil servants have handsome salaries and “utterly pointless presence”

Surely you are aware that salaries have either been frozen or limited to 1% annual increases for almost a decade, and that the pay penalty for professionals cf private-sector equivalents ranges from 10 to 20%.

Then you claim earlier that just one party has racist views, yet the Tory party that you support has been shown in opinion polls to contain a substantial number of supporters holding such views.

Trevor Warne,
“: An alternate future is where we start to lower our current account deficit the “good” way (ie we reshore some manufacturing and we increase exports). We also need to get the budget deficit down but that can come later. To do that we need to leave EU in full AND have a govt that aggressively assists the rebalancing.”

Another long post there Trevor, but the only salient bit seems to be in the paragraph above.

Unfortunately it doesnt explain anything at all about why leaving the EU would help trade (most experts seem to think it would hinder trade). Nor do you explain what measures a government might take which it is uniquely able to do outside the EU rather than in. The real situation seems to be you are proposing that outside the EU a government would be forced by the bad situation to take measures it could have taken inside but did not want to.

Surely this is an example of the wost kind of political spin, the sort which harms a nation?

Garj,
” people’s rights haven’t been substantially changed.”

actually they have, and you admit it. You say,

” I think the evidentiary barrier has been made too high,”

Colin,
“What an unpleasant person you are.”
Blaming the messenger?

Oldnat,
“I agree that AL’s assumption that Tory vindictiveness was only directed against “black or brown people” is nonsense.”

A tory friend of mine has firm views on what should happen to “scrunge” of any colour. And by that I fancy he would include a good proportion of Amber Rudd’s constituents, to continue the monograph on Hastings.